


The Ultimate Guide to Dating in the Kingkiller Chronicles

by Starrik



Series: The Ultimate Guide to Dating in... [1]
Category: Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 18:46:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11408370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrik/pseuds/Starrik
Summary: The first in a series of character-reader shorts that I'm writing across the fandoms that I am interested in. First up is the Kingkiller Chronicles, Patrick Rothfuss' epic tale of fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles... or is that the Princess Bride?





	1. Kvothe

**First Date**

He doesn’t show up. It’s disappointing, but rather unsurprising. Half a week later, he re-emerges from whatever fantastic adventure stole him away from the date he’d completely forgotten upon. Enough rumours surround it that it’s impossible to figure out what the truth is. Either Kvothe spent the time locked in a deadly swordfight with Master Elodin, where they duelled both with sword in hand and Alar against Alar, or he was busy on a mission from Master Kilvin to deactivate an ancient machine deep beneath the University that threatened to destroy the world. These are by far the most believable theories, and you stop listening to them very quickly.

A month passes, and he crosses your path late at night in the Archives. The faded tome about the history of Modeg in your hands looks brand new in comparison to the ancient scroll written in what looks like a nonsensical cipher that Kvothe is holding.

He smiles broadly at you, genuinely pleased to see a friendly face in the middle of his late night research.

“What are you doing this deep in the Archives at a time like this?” he asks, as if you couldn’t say the same thing. You’re struck by how young he looks, but everyone says he just has one of those faces.

“I’ll tell you if you tell me what that scroll says,” you counter. His brilliant green eyes flick down to h

“Touche. Wait,” Kvothe says, a thought passing across his face. “We were supposed to have dinner, weren’t we?”

“It was delicious.”

“Kist and krayle,” he swears, looking genuinely mad with himself. “I’ll make it up to you. Tomorrow night, at the Eolian. At sunset?”

“I’m not much of a singer…” you say, wondering at his plans. The briefest flash of sadness flickers through his eyes, like he pities you for not having music in your soul the way he does.

“And I’m not much of a dancer. But we’ll make it work.”

 

**Second Date**

The sun is thin as a blade’s edge when Kvothe arrives outside the Eolian, looking like the most distinguished vagabond you’ve ever met. He gives off the impression that he would look the same if his outfit cost a hundred marks. He takes your arm, and you walk into the tavern feeling like you’ve been adopted by the nobility. Which, in a way, you have. Deoch eyes you off as you walk in, and for a moment your thoughts wander to the idea of dating him, before you remember who you’re there with.

Everyone here knows Kvothe, and insists on both saying hello to him and complimenting him on his fine choice of evening companion, which makes you blush. Something feels off for a moment, before you realise that everyone here likes Kvothe, unlike the University. Even the musicians who are jealous of his talents admire him. If Stanchion and Deoch are the kings of the Eolian, Kvothe is the people’s champion.

There are three curving staircases from the first floor to the smallest, highest balcony. It takes forever, but you don’t mind. Kvothe shows of both his wit and you, as if you had been dating for weeks. Somehow he knows all about your accomplishments in the Fishery, and praises you for the time you patched him up in the Medica. He skillfully avoids mentioning what he’d done to get in there in the first place, but winks at you as he does it. You remember all too well- that’s how you’re on this date in the first place.

By the time you make it to your seats, the music has started, and your attention is torn away from Kvothe. The first player is an amateur, cocky, and even from your high vantage point you can see that his shoes are too shiny to have ever been worn outside of a manor. There are no claps from the audience when he finishes, and he scowls. Stanchion shakes his hand like he would any other, but looks like he regrets taking the man’s coin.

“Some people don’t deserve the instruments they own,” Kvothe mutters. He clearly meant it for no one but himself, and yet you find yourself curious.

“What would you do with it, then?” you ask. He looks flustered, off-guard. More vulnerable than he has at any other point.

“I guess I would take it and find someone who could make a rusty old flute sing sweetly, and give it to them.”

You open your mouth to make some sort of smart-ass reply about how long that would take, but another musician has walked onto the stage, and you’ve already lost him.

Coming to the Eolian was a bad idea, but at least it wasn’t your bad idea. You enjoy the music, and the wine, and you float back to the University with him as if on a cloud. The entire trip back to your room is a blur.

 

**Third Date**

Unable to remember if you made plans to see Kvothe again at the end of your second- or, well, first date- you don’t see him for a while. The next time he appears, it’s as if someone has stolen away all of his worries. He less asks you on a date, and more kidnaps you away in the middle of the day, his lute under one arm and a picnic basket under the other.

The two of you find a secluded place between Imre and the University, along the Omethi River. Kvothe tosses apples to you, and idly serenades you with music he composes on the spot. At one point, he forgets that you’re there, and starts playing a song that feels exactly like the moment, and the river lapping at Stonebridge’s feet, and the crickets humming to themselves in the slowly waning light.

It’s started to get damp, and he puts his lute away, fearing warping and string damage. Kvothe looks at you in alarm, like it’s been hours since he last remember he wasn’t alone. You were too caught up in the music to realise. With no music to distract you, nor scores of admirers crowding around, it’s the first time you’ve been able to just talk with each other. He has nothing to say. You mention your projects, gossip about the Masters, speculate on the likely outcomes of the relationships people both of you know are in, but he’s clearly uninterested. You prod, and poke, and wheedle at him to contribute something, to bring him back out of his reverie, but it doesn’t work. He’s a closed door, and you didn’t realise it before.

Between the show, and the music, the stories about him and the constant distractions you thought you were getting to know him, but it seems that the Edema Ruh are even better at performing that you’d been told. He hasn’t opened up at all, no matter how much you share.

There’s a part of you that’s beginning to feel cheated of something, that you’re somehow not interesting enough for the secrets you’ve shared to hear even one in return. He can tell you’re upset, and he opens his mouth to say something, when there’s a rustling along the path that you came though.

Kvothe’s head whips around, and when a face appears in the twilight, between the trees, you can read the recognition on it.

“Denna!” he shouts, scrambling to his feet. “I’m so sorry, I have to… It’s been a lovely afternoon, but-” He gives up on explaining. You’ll never understand, you both know that.

He disappears into the darkness, chasing after her, calling her name. It had been a shitty date anyway. You decide that you’re never dating anyone in the process of cultivating their own mythos again.

It’s a promise you definitely won’t be able to keep.


	2. Devi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An eventful, inexplicable night spent with the fiery Devi never goes quite how you expect.

**First Date**

It’s taken you most of a talent, a half hour conversation, some flirting, and a favour, but you’ve finally found her. Demon Devi, everyone you spoke to called her, but you’ll be damned if a name like that would stop you from pursuing her. A small alleyway surrounds you, but it’s Imre, so the ground is still cobbled and the walls don’t smell like piss. If the reputation you heard is anything to go by, the locals would sooner sleep in the middle of a hurricane as seek shelter under demon Devi’s eaves.

You knock on the door.

There’s a brief pause, before a heavy bar is removed and the door opens to reveal the slight, fiery woman you’d spied skulking around in the shadier parts of the University town.

“Here for business, or for pleasure?” she asks dryly, sizing you up in a second.

“Pleasure,” you reply smoothly, and you’re gratified to see shock on a face that clearly is unused to expressing it.

“Is that so? I’m rather busy at the moment…”

She goes to shut the door on you, but after all the time (and money) you spent scouring Imre to find her, you’re not about to be turned away without a solid no. You stick your foot in the door. It hurts when she closes the door on it, and you know that it’s going to be smarting for hours. If they called her demon Devi for her sheer strength, then she wasn’t poorly named.

“Sorry, but I didn’t spend the last four hours being told about how dangerous you were by ‘concerned’ people to not even get a ‘no’. I’d like to take you out on a date. If you’d rather not, that’s fine, but this took way too much effort to not even get an answer.”

Her eyes narrow, but it’s clear that she’s looking at you in a different light. To be frank, so are you. You’ve never been this forceful by half before, but it’s been an incredibly long day, and sometimes persistence pays off. Or so you’re told.

“You really are here to ask me out, aren’t you? If I thought you were one hair less sincere, I would have kicked your ass all the way back across the river, but you are just cute enough for me to give you a chance. Come on.”

The door stays open this time, just long enough for you to scurry inside her office and take a look around. It’s quite homely, furnished with books more than anything else. This is an aesthetic choice that you can definitely get behind.

“It’s lovely,” you say, breathlessly. Having your fate decided by demon Devi was easily the most tense you’ve been since admissions.

“Business is good,” Devi replies, much of the threatening air about her gone now that she’s decided to let you stay. “But I’m afraid I wasn’t kidding when I said I was busy. I’ve got a… thing, going on right now that I can’t really put on pause. So if you want a date, this is it.”

Tuition was a little higher than you’d like last month, so getting caught doing misdeeds could see you out of the University for the next semester. And that’s not even worth thinking about. On the other hand, there’s the potential for an entire evening spent with Devi, and that’s just too much to let slip through your fingers now you have it.

“I’m in.”

The preparation work is hard, and you’re soon sweating hard. But you’ve kept pace with Devi, and you can tell that she’s impressed by your endurance. She continues to be impressed until you can feel a chill start to run down your arm, and you break the binding that you were holding.

Devi starts to make a scathing remark, having proved her superiority, but instead she frowns and looks down at the contraption that you still don’t understand. A second later, she yanks both hands away from it, and you can tell that she’s broken all of her bindings.

“I don’t know what’s going on there, but, uh, if you hadn’t broken when you did I might not have noticed until too late. Nice work.”

“Thanks.” You fail to manage anything further, an hour’s work with Devi has been more than enough to make you value her praise highly.

“No- wait-” Devi cuts herself off twice, and crouches over the contraption, making a dozen gestures that you don’t understand. Something snaps into place, and she whistles softly. “Perfect. Quick, bind the two pieces of this stick together.” She shoves two halves of a stick into your hands, and you hurriedly bind them together- only for the binding to melt away, the stick that you had expected to float falling from the air. Devi pumps her fist in the air, and starts fussing over the machine again.

The various arms of the contraption are folded in, and a deep blue blanket wrapped around it. Devi pushes it into your arms, and starts out of her front door. Wondering what turn this is going to take next, you follow.

Eventually, the two of you arrive at an empty barn, only distinguishable from its neighbours by the distinct lack of maintenance. The air of anticipation that has been building up around Devi the entire way there kicks up an entire notch as she handily picks the lock, and shuts the heavy wooden door behind the both of you.

“Come on, up here,” she says impatiently, yanking at your collar. The two of you bury yourselves in the near end of the hayloft, completely invisible from practically all sides, but with a great view of the empty barn below. Devi wastes no time in setting up the machine exactly as it was in her living room, and you get a glimpse of a couple other runes that you hadn’t noticed before. It still makes precisely zero sense to you.

A little while later, it’s difficult to tell how long, another shape enters the barn. The movement is so silent that you think you’re hallucinating for a moment, before you look to Devi and realise that she’s seen them too. You consider asking her if she knew they were coming, but her expression makes it clear this would be a dumb question, and lower her opinion of you considerably. You think it might be Master Elodin. You decide never to tell anyone about any of this, ever, for your own safety.

The two of you wait, in silence, slowly moving from being separate in the hay to lying right by one another. Devi doesn’t say anything when you wrap an arm around her, but snuggles in nevertheless. There’s nothing about the action that makes her seem any less powerful than before- just a little warmer. This is supposed to be a date after all.

Another person enters the barn, this one not quietly at all. The muffled sounds of a show-down echo up to you, the details lost in the insulation of hay, and the sound of Devi’s heartbeat picking up. She slides a panel on the machine, and you’re quite sure that its binding-breaking powers are in full swing, however in Tehlu’s name that works.

The second stranger’s hand raises, pointing threateningly at Elodin, but whatever they expected to happen clearly doesn’t. They try again, with no further success. Elodin starts talking, and you’re quite sure that he is taunting his opponent. This is Elodin, what else could it be? The stranger lunges forward, and you can feel the stone beneath the barn start to shiver. But whatever the stranger thought to try against the master namer is quickly cut off, and you see him apply a thorough punch to the side of the stranger’s head.

After the two leave, Elodin dragging the other person, you turn to Devi, full of questions. She shakes her head at you. “You know almost as much as I do, partner. Forget it, that’s what’s best for all of us.”

You’re filled with adrenaline, this bizarre evening more of a rush than any date you’ve ever been on before. Devi seems to have been true to her word, and put the entire affair from her mind, focusing on you with an intensity that you’ve never seen before.

She starts toying with your top button, other things undoubtedly on her mind now. While it wouldn’t be your first choice of circumstance, it’s hard to argue with a beautiful, fierce arcanist with a stronger Alar than you’d ever imagined. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you, you beautiful bastard,” she whispers, and kisses the side of your neck, slowly moving downwards…

You later decide that, while you have absolutely no regrets, you’re never going near Devi ever again. One wild, passionate, dangerous night filled with inexplicable mystery and more than one powerful wizard with an angelic face is plenty, especially if you want to stay alive to keep dating, especially since you have no idea exactly what you just did.

Devi is definitely worth the time, though, that much you can say for sure.


End file.
